The use of touch-sensitive surfaces as input devices for computers and other electronic computing devices has increased significantly in recent years. Exemplary touch-sensitive surfaces include touchpads and touch-screen displays. Such surfaces are widely used to manipulate user interface objects on a display.
Exemplary manipulations include accessing controls for controlling device functions and functions of remote devices. But methods for performing these manipulations are cumbersome and inefficient. As the realm of uses of remote devices grows, accessing particular controls and functions grows more time consuming. For example, entering a sequence of inputs to access a control via a drill down menu is time consuming for a user, particularly if the location of the desired control is not known beforehand by the user. Navigating between applications to access device functions is also time consuming.